NOVEL NEXT chapter 26 - Pinkerton.
Chicago’s first detective.
Allan Pinkerton’s “Pinkerton National Detective Agency” would later turn into what we’d now call a Private Military Company.
At this moment, it’s year five since Pinkerton’s founding.
If they’re posting a help-wanted ad in a small-town paper, they’re short on detectives—which means they’re drowning in clients.
The real surge in headcount comes after the Civil War. That’s when Pinkerton soaks up discharged soldiers and truly evolves into a PMC.
One little Pinkerton ad sent a lot of things skittering through Max’s head.
His previous life—and the road he had to take from here.
If he thought of what he did best, the answer was simple.
‘I should go see the Pinkerton office.’
The location: Chicago, Illinois.
But not right now.
At this point in time, there was nothing to be gained from going to Pinkerton.
‘At the very least, I need my own outfit.’
Comrades to run a field with, like the mercs in his past life.
So far, what came to mind was—
‘The kid, the Black slaves’ guardian angel, and that peculiar Fi—’
Creak, creak.
Fitch came into the office.
“Emery’s looking for you.”
Emery was the town carpenter.
They’d been holding frequent meetings lately over construction of the town refuge.
Emery confirmed a few things with Max, then raised something else:
The murders that had happened recently in two Kansas towns.
“Why is it, of all places, both towns are heavy with slave-state men? Do the sheriffs there also think abolitionists did it?”
“Hard to say.”
Truth was, when Max first read the article he hadn’t taken it too seriously. Settlers killed each other over land all the time.
The problem was that similar cases had hit two towns—and one of them was Delaware, close to Lawrence.
Delaware, a choke point on the route from Leavenworth to Lawrence, full of pro-slavery men. The townspeople there, just because the victims were pro-slavery, pinned the crime on abolitionists. The result was to block the road from Leavenworth to Lawrence.
With things breaking this way, Max leafed through the notebooks where he’d written memories from his previous life and could infer the culprits.
Some thought there was some tangled plot behind it, but the real killers couldn’t care less about slavery.
If it was a woman, they raped her and killed her; if he had money, they robbed him and killed him.
Not that they were simple outlaws, either.
Max remembered these bastards because—
They were the ones who’d set the stage to lump future incidents, big and small, onto abolitionists as the supposed perpetrators.
And the kicker: the bastards themselves were pro-slavery men out of Missouri.
Their identity only came out much later, so abolitionists had no choice but to eat the blame one-sidedly.
‘So it’s now, is it.’
Max waited for them to show themselves in Lawrence.
****
When he got back to the office,
Fitch was sitting in a chair, staring blankly at the ceiling.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking. About you.”
“……”
What was a man supposed to say to that? As Max’s eyes wobbled, Fitch went on.
“The paper says it’ll be hard to catch the Delaware killer, too. You really think the culprit’s our kind—abolitionists?”
‘No. Just brain-dead bastards.’
After mulling it over, Fitch said,
“Stuff like this—Pinkerton would solve it in no time.”
“Pinkerton?”
Max asked, eyes wide.
“It’s where capable detectives gather. If it’s them, they’ll nab the culprits fast.”
Fitch loved detective fiction and was neck-deep in its sleuth heroes.
Her admiring Pinkerton wasn’t odd. In fact, given how she acted, it fit her pretty well.
“You’re big on Pinkerton, I see.”
“Sure. It’s my dream. Not that they’d take me.”
‘Hm? A woman detective at Pinkerton…?’
A woman’s name flashed through Max’s head.
Pinkerton’s first—no, the world’s first—woman detective.
But the title wasn’t what mattered with her. It was the record.
The woman detective who foiled the first attempt on Abraham Lincoln’s life.
‘But she was /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ a widow, and her name wasn’t Fitch.’
Common ground, maybe: brown hair and roughly the same age.
Suddenly Max thought—Fitch could absolutely pass under a false identity if she wanted.
“Hey, by any chance—”
Max’s lips trembled as he asked,
“Are you a widow?”
Fitch’s eyes quivered, too.
More anger than surprise.
The way she glanced around, she looked like she was searching for a gun.
Max fired off his second question fast.
“Then—are you using your real name?”
“What’s with you. Did Emery hit you with a hammer?”
‘Guess not.’
He wavered. And another thought came.
She could still join Pinkerton under an alias.
“Do you have a name you like? One you’d want to use?”
“Max Jo. Max Jo Junior?”
“!”
“Other than that, my name’s the best.”
‘Yeah, not her.’
He felt a twinge of regret—and a bit of relief. Honestly, with Fitch’s skills, anyone would want to recruit her.
‘If not the first, she could’ve been the next detective.’
The grass is always greener.
Fitch being into Pinkerton made him want her—strictly as a comrade, not as a woman.
“Pinkerton’s nothing special. Learn under me instead.”
“I’ll grant you our sheriff is something. Shoots well, cuts well, reads a situation—fine. But.”
“But what? There’s no ‘but’—”
“You lack finesse. A detective lives on not missing the small stuff—careful, analytical work. I haven’t seen that from you yet.”
Max’s pride cracked.
Pinkerton, my ass—what exactly was he missing?
“And besides. Sheriff suits you. You’re satisfied here, too.”
“Do I look that way?”
“Told you. A man in the West without land isn’t a man. And what’s with all the talking today? A chatty man is a turn-off.”
Fitch shook her head and walked out. Left staring, Max snorted and sat down.
“Some comrade.”
With that personality, she wouldn’t take orders.
She’d nitpick every little thing.
In short, zero points as a teammate.
He shoved Fitch into a tiny hole in the back of his mind. Max turned his eyes to the newspaper spread on the desk.
And then Fitch filled most of his head again.
The Pinkerton ad had been cut out.
Max stared at the hole in the paper and drummed his fingers on the desk.
Then he slid a glance at the Delaware murder article Fitch mentioned.
‘I’ll show her what a detective really is.’
****
A few days later Holliday came by the office.
Beside him stood a Native father and son, both dressed in Western garb.
They were the ones who’d first pointed out Topeka’s site and guided the area.
“Joe Jim. And this here’s my boy, Junior.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Joe Jim. Max Jo.”
Saying “Jo” twice in a row sounded odd.
Max switched hands as he went to shake.
Joe Jim was one-armed, missing his right hand.
“Lost the arm to poison.”
“I see. So what’s the occasion today?”
Max looked to Holliday.
“Need to confer with Chairman Charles. When you rush the works, the headaches pile up.”
Topeka was in full swing building the bones of a city. They were laying out a grid like a checkerboard and pushing works to make it the capital of Kansas.
Holliday had even brought in a steamboat to run the Kansas River on a schedule to grease the works.
Landings went in at Topeka and Lawrence, bringing meat, lumber, and flour from the east—and hauling back potatoes, corn, and wheat grown here.
Fact was, for Topeka to become Kansas’s capital, condition one was that it had to be a free state. And that road was long and rough.
“We’re off to see Chairman Charles. Catch you later.”
After Holliday and the Native pair left, not long after—
Like déjà vu, Fitch came to the office.
“Strangers coming in, they say?”
“Are they?”
Fitch drifted to the desk naturally.
“Let’s go together today.”
“Suit yourself.”
Not the curious type, Fitch walked out ahead of him.
“Today we’re doing detective class. What a detective is—I’ll scratch that itch for you.”
“Out of nowhere, huh.”
“No. Before you say that, you should infer why I’d say this today of all days.”
“Mm. You missed your medicine?”
“See? That’s why you’re an amateur.”
Fitch gave him a look, then started actually thinking.
She kept quiet for a while.
After a bit,
they saw three men in their twenties entering town.
Max spoke to Fitch under his breath.
“Stay away from me. And from now on, analyze the strangers.”
Fitch took some distance.
They each watched the men with their own eyes.
Well-dressed, ordinary at a glance.
They were startled when they saw Max, too.
“Wh-what the—an Oriental?”
Tired of the reaction, Max kept his voice even.
“I’m the town sheriff. What’s your business here?”
“Huh? What—how is that even possible?”
“Hey. Is this guy really the sheriff?”
They even asked the townsfolk.
“What do you mean ‘this guy’? Max Jo is our sheriff, okay?!”
“Barging in like this—what rudeness.”
The townspeople got heated on his behalf and scolded the men.
The men frowned, traded looks, then suddenly smiled.
“Seems there’s been a little misunderstanding. Here, everyone, take one.”
They pulled handbills from their bag and handed them out.
Max, curious, held out his hand.
“Let me see.”
“No need for Orientals. Don’t waste paper.”
“Give me a break. I’ll give it to him! It’s just a piece of paper.”
A townsman, unable to stand it, passed Max the sheet he’d gotten.
[The American Party knows nothing but this country.]
‘Ho. The American Party.’
Useless to Max—just a party promo flyer.
After the famed Abraham Lincoln’s Whig Party collapsed,
new parties were sprouting, and among the minor ones gaining scary momentum was the American Party.
And everyone, Max and the town included, knew their true colors well.
A bunch born crooked, nicknamed “Know Nothing.”
Nativists who treated Irish and Germans—immigrants—like trash even compared to Blacks.
An outfit that only admitted white, English, Protestant men—now reborn as a respectable party expanding its reach.
“Our American Party has come all the way to Lawrence, land of Kansas freedom, to pay our respects. There’ll be a speech in the square shortly—we ask for your participation!”
The men reclaimed their flyers and headed for the town center, ignoring the frosty reception.
Max couldn’t block a party’s canvassing. He watched in silence as they passed.
Then he went to Fitch.
“Tell me what you saw analyzing them.”
“Mm. Their faces reeked of pretense—but that’s the type for this kind of work. And they fussed a lot over their clothes. And…”
Fitch was serious. She laid out details on the men’s appearance.
“And what else?”
“True to the American Party, they disrespected you. Annoying, right.”
Max nodded.
“Sharp analysis.”
“Anyway. That’s good enough, no?”
“You know what’s off there?”
“What is?”
Max stared straight at her and spoke.
“You reasoned about them on the assumption they’re American Party members.”
“If they’re not members, what are they?”
‘They’re the culprits.’
Men who couldn’t care less about the American Party or slavery, with slick little brains. The rob-and-murder crew that hit two Kansas towns had finally slithered into Lawrence.